We All Know How This Ends

Lessons About Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying

By: Anna Lyons, Louise Winter

Narrated by: Anna Lyons, Louise Winter

Bloomsbury presents We all know how this ends by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter, read by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter.

'Wonderful, thoughtful, practical' – Cariad Lloyd, Griefcast

'Encouraging and inspiring' – Dr Kathryn Mannix, author of Amazon bestseller With the End in Mind

We all know how this ends is a new approach to death and dying, showing how exploring our mortality really can change our lives.

End-of-life doula Anna Lyons and funeral director Louise Winter have joined forces to share a collection of the heartbreaking, surprising and uplifting stories of the ordinary and extraordinary lives they encounter every single day.

From working with the living, the dying, the dead and the grieving, Anna and Louise reveal the lessons they’ve learned about life, death, love and loss. Together they’ve created a profound but practical guide to rethinking the one thing that’s guaranteed to happen to us all. We are all going to die, and that's ok. Let's talk about it.

This is a book about life and living, as much as it’s a book about death and dying. It’s a reflection on the beauties, blessings and tragedies of life, the exquisite agony and ecstasy of being alive, and the fragility of everything we hold dear. It's as simple and as complicated as that.©2021 Anna Lyons and Louise Winter (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"Wonderful, thoughtful, practical." (Cariad Lloyd, Griefcast)

"Encouraging and inspiring." (Dr Kathryn Mannix, author of Amazon best seller With the End in Mind)

"We don't have to think about death and dying all the time but when we want to - or are forced to - how wonderful to have a manual to sustain and guide us through it all." (Sarah Brown)

An informative book about death and dying

We All Know How this Ends is a book that is all about helping you embrace your life, death, and grief. This was written by an End-of-Life Doula and a funeral director who share their collective knowledge in a way to help you through your mortality and your family and friends’ mortality. They also provide information written by others who have experienced various kinds of grief and loss and what they think people should know (like a parent’s loss of a child or spouse).

This was a very easy to follow book because it is broken down into short essay style sections about various aspects of life, sickness, death, and grief. Each chapter usually includes lists with bullet points on how to deal with the topic, such as How to Support a Grieving Friend. These lists were fantastic because they make learning about death and grief less daunting and also make it easier to share with other people who might need them.

While some of the information provided was a little repetitive, I found it all very useful and informative on how to deal with my own life. I appreciated that the authors interviewed other people and included their testimonials and helpful tips in this book because it provided a wider range of topics and scenarios that anyone could face.

It should be noted though that this book was written in the UK and is based on the funeral industry there, so some things don’t work the same in the USA, and also this was published during the pandemic, which features heavily throughout this book. Some of the guides are centered around the pandemic distancing structure, such as the planning a funeral section, but I still think the information can be applied to non pandemic circumstances.

Overall, this was a super helpful approach to death and dying. I think if you are struggling with death, grief, or the thought of your own end, then read this book because it could help you sort out your life and death.

TW: death; child death; miscarriages; suicide; grief; COVID pandemic;